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In this article:

• A record 30 Providence hospitals applied for and earned 55 Practice Greenhealth Environmental Excellence Awards in 2024, including four hospitals named as “Top 25” hospitals.

• These awards recognize environmental excellence in health care systems nationwide, including efforts to reduce water use, waste, mercury and more.   

• Providence also received the System for Change Award for the fourth straight year. This award recognizes health care systems that set, track and meet robust system-wide sustainability goals. 

Celebrating stewardship: Honoring Practice Greenhealth winners

The health care industry is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. That’s why it’s up to health care systems like Providence to lead the way in environmental stewardship.

“Environmental stewardship is important from two directions: one, because we create pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, which is antithetical to our purpose of creating health; and two, because of this harm, we’re seeing impacts on health,” says Beth Schenk, Ph.D., executive director of environmental stewardship for Providence. “The voices of health professionals are important in driving change because these are health issues.”

Providence’s environmental stewardship efforts earned national recognition through the 2024 Practice Greenhealth Awards. This year, 30 Providence hospitals applied for and won these honors. In addition, for the fourth-straight year, Providence brought home the System for Change Award — a prestigious honor recognizing the environmental stewardship work Providence is doing across the organization.

Providence is committed to environmental stewardship through several initiatives:

• WE ACT for carbon emissions mitigation: This framework organizes, mobilizes, tracks and reports carbon reduction efforts across Providence ministries, focusing on waste, energy and water, agriculture and food, chemicals and transportation.
• WE REACH for climate resilience: Recognizing the impacts of climate change on our operations and the communities we serve, this framework focuses on resiliency, equity, adaptation, climate and health.
• WE SHARE for climate and health advocacy: Because we can’t achieve our goals alone, this framework highlights efforts in climate and health advocacy to drive change in public policy and awareness. 

Recognizing excellence in health care sustainability 

For more than two decades, Practice Greenhealth, a national membership and networking organization, has promoted environmental stewardship in health care, particularly hospitals. The organization offers a robust awards platform with a competitive application process to grade hospitals on their sustainability and resiliency efforts.

“These awards indicate the depth, breadth and excellence of our program and are deeply aligned with our environmental stewardship efforts at Providence,” says Schenk. “I’m most proud that our entry-level hospitals put together such robust applications and have been recognized for their work.”

In addition to the hospital-level recognition, four Providence hospitals were recognized in the top 25 nationwide, the highest recognition category from Practice Greenhealth: Providence St Patrick Hospital in Missoula, Montana, Providence Swedish First Hill and Cherry Hill Hospitals in Seattle, and Providence Swedish Issaquah in Issaquah, Washington. In addition, 14 Providence sites earned Circle of Excellence recognition as top performers in the nation across environmental stewardship categories. Both marks are records for Providence as a system.

Celebrating Providence awardees

In all, 30 Providence hospitals took home a total of 55 awards:

• Covenant Children's Hospital: Partner for Change
• Covenant Medical Center: Partner for Change
• Kadlec Regional Medical Center: Partner for Change
• Providence Alaska Medical Center: Greenhealth Emerald Award, Greening the OR Recognition
• Providence Centralia Hospital: Greenhealth Emerald Award, Circle of Excellence - Waste
• Providence Holy Family Hospital: Partner for Change
• Providence Hood River Memorial Hospital: Partner for Change
• Providence Little Company of Mary Medical Center Torrance: Partner for Change
• Providence Medford Medical Center: Partner for Change
• Providence Milwaukie Hospital: Partner for Change
• Providence Mount Carmel Hospital: Partner for Change
• Providence Newberg Medical Center: Partner for Change
• Providence Portland Medical Center: Partner for Change 
• Providence Regional Medical Center Everett: Greenhealth Emerald Award, Making Medicine Mercury Free, Greening the OR Recognition
• Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center & Children’s Hospital: Partner for Change, Greening the OR Recognition
• Providence Seaside Hospital: Greenhealth Emerald Award, Circle of Excellence – Greening the OR
• Providence System: System for Change
• Providence Saint John’s Health Center: Partner for Change
• Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center (CA): Partner for Change
• Providence St. Joseph Medical Center (MT): Partner for Change
• Providence St. Mary Medical Center: Partner for Change, Greening the OR Recognition
• Providence St. Patrick Hospital: Top 25, Greening the OR Recognition, Circle of Excellence – Waste
• Providence St. Peter Hospital: Greenhealth Emerald Award, Greening the OR Recognition
• Providence St. Vincent Medical Center: Greenhealth Emerald Award, Greening the OR Recognition
• Providence Willamette Falls Medical Center: Partner for Change
• St. Joseph Hospital Orange: Partner for Change
• Providence Swedish Ballard: Greenhealth Emerald Award, Circle of Excellence – Transportation
• Providence Swedish Cherry Hill: Top 25, Greening the OR Recognition, Circle of Excellence –Climate
• Providence Swedish Edmonds: Greenhealth Emerald Award, Circle of Excellence – Climate, Transportation 
• Providence Swedish First Hill: Top 25, Greening the OR Recognition, Circle of Excellence –Transportation
• Providence Swedish Issaquah: Top 25, Circle of Excellence – Climate, Energy, Greening the OR, Transportation, Waste, Water

“These local awards demonstrate the work individual sites are doing within the walls of their hospitals and interactions with community members,” says Schenk. “It’s really cool to see how an award in Alaska differs from an award in California, and how our system is helping to support these efforts at a local level.” 

The future of environmental stewardship at Providence

Recognizing powerful examples of environmental stewardship projects from hospitals across the country, award programs like Practice Greenhealth offer inspiration for future environmental initiatives within Providence.

“The Practice Greenhealth Awards have spurred us to be more specific in what we report and to dig deep for data and examples that describe our work,” says Schenk. “They have pushed us to measure and report on more areas, including resilience, that are in line with our goals.”

As Providence looks toward future environmental stewardship projects — like completing its first greenhouse gas accounting verification, transitioning nitrous oxide delivery from piped systems to more efficient cylinders and onboarding more sites to the Coolfood Pledge — the environmental stewardship team recognizes that it is not enough to practice sustainable health care: They must also help others along on their journey.

That’s why, in April, Providence announced the launch of the Providence Center for Environmental Stewardship, a virtual platform that shares details of Providence’s environmental stewardship, advocacy and resiliency initiatives. This platform is a resource for other health systems also working on environmental stewardship and includes toolkits and other support to accelerate their impact.

Contributing caregiver

Beth Schenk, Ph.D., is the executive director of environmental stewardship for Providence.  

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